


When Last We Met

by heartstone



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: During Mairon's Time in Almaren, Fluff, M/M, Romance, gift-giving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 11:55:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15000374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstone/pseuds/heartstone
Summary: When last they met, His visit was woefully interrupted, cut short and bittersweet. The forges had been hot and the dull scarlet light had smouldered low as they spoke in hushed whispers. He had hesitated at first, to stray from their conversation and present to the Maia yet another gift of His favor: overindulgence it was, perhaps, to spoil the spirit so oft with His findings and creations, which had become so frequent. But whenever Mairon laid eyes upon His offerings- how his eyes would alight, their fire within enkindled with renewed fervor!***With the Valar's renewed vigilance, Melkor has trouble meeting with his beloved Maia.





	When Last We Met

I.

When last they met, His visit was woefully interrupted, cut short and bittersweet. The forges had been hot and the dull scarlet light had smouldered low as they spoke in hushed whispers. He had hesitated at first, to stray from their conversation and present to the Maia yet another gift of His favor: overindulgence it was, perhaps, to spoil the spirit so oft with His findings and creations, which had become so frequent. But whenever Mairon laid eyes upon His offerings- how his eyes would alight, their fire within enkindled with renewed fervor!

He had told Him, in a level tone that grew steadily more and more angry, how the Valar suspected Him of espionage. They thought He snuck into Almaren each day to corrupt the Lesser Spirits, to pollute their Theme and destroy the unity of the Ainur with His Discord. It would be difficult in the coming days for Melkor to pass the strengthened guard of the city and find His way to the Smithies of Aulë.

And even as they spoke, the reawakened vigilance of the Valar made Aulë sensitive to the slight change in clime and sound that Melkor’s Fëa brought, and long growing had been His concern for His greatest protégé. It was neigh on ten minutes that His heavy footsteps could be heard approaching the Maia’s private forge, and the Dark Vala slipped out of a great stone chimney-shaft in the form of blackened smoke and the whispering shimmer of ice that reflected in electric static His frustration.

 

II.

So He sat, in the glade they were accustomed to meet, where the trees sheltered them and the wildflowers tangled at their feet, their upturned faces in full bloom, waiting to follow the glow of Mairon’s golden radiance whenever he entered. Yellow catalpa with its lacey white florets and broad leaves interwove with the leaden boughs of walnut trees and the mist-dewed fruits of pale white pear on overreaching branches. The tall brush of garlic mustard and thistle formed a fringed ring around the open centre while forest bluegrass, tufts of trailing bluestem, and the wrinkled folds of purple iris boldly encroached into the middle of the clearing.

Long He sat, hopeful, impatient, turned then to brooding when Mairon did not push aside the jade of the walnut-branch or duck under the glossy gatherings of fat, ripened fruit. His hands, which fidgeted at the satin cloth over His lap, contained within a gemstone, cut precise and polished with utmost care: an opal of exceptional beauty that He had wished to give His last visit.

But the hours slipped by until a day had passed of His sitting there, and when Mairon did not come He was filled with a longing and an intense ire that He, mightiest of the Ainur, should be kept so long from Mairon whom had enchanted Him, that they should have to sneak away like a thieving vagrants than savor the each other’s companionship.

With hope, however, He tenderly laid the gift on the smoothed grey rock which crowned the very middle of the clearing, and in the form of a thousand crows, harshly cawed at the glimmering peaks of the crystalline tower in which Manwë reigned.

 

III.

Days slipped by until a week had passed, and Mairon snuck from a crumbled wall hidden under the clustered tea roses in Yavanna’s gardens, and had passed through the forest to the grove. Yet, when at last he entered under the twisted arch of the catalpa, he found the grove was still and silent, and the rock, skirted with a clustering of flowers, disappointed him in its vacancy.

But there glistened in a shaft of light a small highlighted curve of the opal uncovered by the satin sable cloth, and when Mairon strode eagerly to take the cabochon into his warm palms, the daisy and fawn lily strained on their stalks to catch even a glimpse of his brilliance. And as he uncovered the piece his Theme lept and seemed to studder on its own notes, as when the fingers of new harp-player trip over strings.

The stone trembled with energy, as if the speckles and swirls it contained were but a looking-glass into a far-distant galaxy at very reaches of Eä. Its nucleus was a spread of aurum light thinned into a disk of fiery alizarin broken by shimmering veins of a molten cinnabar lightning. The core of the opal was haloed by nebulous sangria and deep swirling azure, which darkly clouded the periphery of the lustrous stone. In the instant Mairon felt its weight he sensed the gemstone’s creation: the building of its form from vague silica and stardust that had been deliberate and purposeful.

 _It was made for him,_ and when its glassy surface clicked against the metal of one of his rings he quickly removed them so they wouldn’t interfere with the carefully-imparted energy emanating from the stone. He held it tight in his fist, feeling the humming Discord that permeated every atom of its composition against his bare skin. The opal clearly had not been found in some cave far under the crust- it was _made for him,_ and all the galaxies enwritten on it danced, their colours expanding and shimmering like the sparks of firecrackers or the bursting paroxysm of a star’s last sputtering breath. Its choice of colour was not lost on him, for those blues and violets he saw often sneaking in his forge, and of the other fiery hues he found in the mirror.

So attentive a gift could not be left unthanked.

 

IV.

The brush was pushed aside, and Melkor returned to the grove where the birdsong died and the leaves stirred at His presence. The black satin handkerchief still lay on the stone and He felt suddenly a crippling rush of disappointment: Mairon had been unable to break free of the Valar’s constant watch. So great was His dejection that He shoved a walnut-branch and turned to leave, when at His turning, from the keen glance of His dark eyes, He saw what looked to be fine-spun copper.

Hurrying to the stone He unfolded the satin and uncovered from within not the stone He had left, but a small braid tied at both shorn ends with a frayed strip of leather. In a way it _was_ fine-spun copper He had seen, a sheen of unrivaled beauty in a sinuous wave of shimmery ringlets that looked like liquid earth and felt like the finest-spun silk. He held the thick bundle as if it as the most esteemed of His possessions, a blessed offering that still held within the spicy-sweet aroma of the forge-Maia.

From His own head He cut His own token, and left in a better mood than long He had been.

 

V.

Suspicions grew in Almaren, but no corruption was to be found, no tainting among the Lesser Spirits, nor tune of Discord- for Mairon had become a skilled deceiver. And so it was he was able to sneak out once more, and bring with him a hasty gift that time would allow. When he set this newest gift on the rock he smiled, and the lock of long, thin and shadowy hair that felt as cool and dark as jet lignite or as smooth as black ink, was carefully tucked into a pocket. And on his face, a brilliant smile.

Already their vigilance was waning, and over the weeks since last they met, Mairon had been purposefully overworking himself so as to try to get Aulë to force him to take time away from the forge. Already the Great Smith was fussing over him, entreating him to slow his work. Soon, he knew, He would command him to take leave and relax, and then he could slip away for hours unnoticed, feigning that he had lost himself in Yavanna’s gardens and had found peace there.

 

VI.

The Dark Vala sat, and in His lap was the treat that had been wrapped for Him. It was a tin that contained a thin bar the colour of dark brown, rich and decadent in flavor and fragrance that seemed to Him an echo of Mairon’s own, as if before its invention he had carried with him its suggestions. Its label had enwritten it as sweetened cocoa, some new invention of an irrelevant Maia who tended to the cacao trees.

When He had savored each melting bite He set the tin down and began to sing, and from His lips spilled a song of a wistful desire, and a bitter restlessness. But from within His pocket Melkor found the tuft of gifted hair, and He stroked it and looked down upon its vibrancy and He thought of the strange glimpses of sweetness that had first surprised Him when He bit into the cocoa, and His mind drifted often to the image of Mairon long ago when He had shown him the eruption of one of His volcanoes in the North, and the fruit and honeycomb that they had shared as they watched its temper from afar. And so, His song shifted tone.

When He left, there where His feet had rested in the grass, came a green shoot, and it pushed through the soil with an unfurling joy.

 

VII.

Time stood still in the encircling of trees, but weeks had passed on outside. Each day the Vala came and tended to His newest gift, and each day He stayed and waited for a long while. The tiny shoot grew tall and strong, and with Melkor’s nourishment, grew rapidly. So it was that when Mairon returned to the clearing there was no bud or sapling, but a tree in its fruitful youth, well tended and weighted with its first and bountiful ripening.

It had a slender trunk and branches that spread into a wide and tall crown, with oval leaves. It had grown to fill the empty space in the grove that before had been free to the sky, and Mairon circled it in a thrilled curiosity that made him quiver with delight. Its far-reaching branches, that which stretched to the heavens, held hundreds of fruit in the an intense orange colour, which seemed to overcrowd its limbs.

And on the stone in the back of the grove there waited for him a fruit peeled and cut, and when he smelled it was sweet he blushed, but when he saw how ordered its structure was, pre-sliced and divided equally, he felt he knew its inspiration and his cheeks only deepened in their crimson.

And though the orange tree was a most lovely gift, Mairon’s joy did not compare to when its giver came at last from under its swaying branches.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this one written for a while, but I don't know why I didn't publish it :/ It's just some random fluffy sweetness.  
> I've always wanted to write a piece about their gift-giving habits, I feel like they would give each other a lot of gifts, especially since they couldn't always meet up and because they are both inherently very creative. Although I did have trouble thinking of Mairon's last gift, which I just defaulted to the typical chocolate gift, haha.  
> I think at first I was going to make the final gift a lemon tree- I even considered an apple or pomegranate tree as allusions, but something just made me want to do an orange tree, I don't know.  
> Oh! And I think the hair-gift thing (sounds creepy the way I just put it) was inspired by Victorian practices and the stories with Galadriel's hair. And the opal is intended to be a dragon's breath opal.  
> :D  
> ***


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